Existing comment:
Final Resting Place:
Seawater entering Titanic's bow dragged it downward, lifting the stern clear of the ocean. The hull could not stand such stress. It fractured into two main pieces at the aft expansion joint near the third funnel or smokestack. Chunks of keel and hull tore away from the major sections.
The bow, more than 400 feet long, landed upright and relatively intact. Because water gradually displaced air inside its decks, it suffered only minor damage after the breakup. It planed gracefully into a gentle slop overlooking a small canyon, its prow pointing north. The stem faced a much more violent end. Scientists speculate it contained trapped air as it sank, especially inside refrigeration compartments. Rising pressure likely collapsed the air pockets throgh implosion followed by explosion. Implosive and explosive forces, impact, and fluid resistance to a heavy, moving object combined to smash, peel, and twist the stern's hull and decks. One 330-foot section landed nearly 2,000 feet from the bow, pointed in the opposite direction.
Breakup at the surface opened all decks to the sea. Thousands of objects ranging from chairs to china, and combs to coal, scattered between and around the bow and stern, forming a debris field. Prominent are give of the twenty-nine coal-burning boilers. Salvage expeditions run by a company now known as RMS Titanic Inc. have retrieved nearly 6,000 objects.
Micro-organisms have consumed much of the organic material, including deck planks. Symbiotic colonies of bacteria and fungi are slowly consuming hull and deck plate, as well as other iron objects, extracting metal to spin spongy formations called "rusticles." Ceramic and acid-treated leather items, including toilets and shoes, have resisted deterioration. Human remains have yet to be found, although clothing and shoes have been photographed in arrangements suggesting they once enclosed bodies. |